In their May/June 2007 issue, Foreign Policy asked twenty-one leading thinkers “what is the one solution that would make the world a better place”.
21 Solutions to Save the World.
The leading thinkers include Amy Myers Jaffe — a Wallace S. Wilson fellow in energy studies at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy and associate director of the Rice University Energy Program — who talks about oil dependency and suggests that in order to remove our dependency on oil, oil which is now or will soon be controlled by nations instead of by large oil companies which will limit access to many in the future, she suggests we look at electricity as the medium of the future.
In “Flip the Swtich” She says.….
“There’s no escape from the reality that we will be largely dependent on these national behemoths for future oil supplies. The implications of this restructuring of the oil industry should be sounding alarm bells in the capitals of major oil-consuming countries.”
Another well respected leading thinker whose opinion they included — Stephen Lewis, the former U.N. special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa — gives his answer in a post The Second Sex he claims that
“It can safely be said that the struggle for gender equality is the single most important struggle on the planet”
He hopes that the initiative for the UN to create a high level international agency for women gives the best opportunity in years in regard to this struggle.
The suggestion that it “staffed by experts on women’s issues, rather than the motley compendium of generalists within many of the existing U.N. agencies who now merely pretend to drive the gender agenda.” is something we can all hope the UN takes into consideration.
All twenty-one are well worth reading but require a subscription for full text.
It is also worth noting that I will keep my subscription despite the fact of the twenty-one leading thinkers.…. they only included two women.
Way to go Foreign Policy.
“Times” list of this years most influential people. Look at it and tell me you do not understand why we are in trouble.
Bratt Pitt???
John Mayer?????????/ Love what he does with his fingers but seriously folks.
Rachael Ray??????????????????????????????
The reason this is posted is because the poll where you vote closes at midnight and I just happened to read that fact at the
Daily Intelligencer
The Beckham part of that “Intelligencer” posts sticks with me hard.
I don’t subscribe to FP but believe it or not my little brother does. I’m off to borrow his login.
Interesting. Twenty-one “save the world” essays, and none of them about containing (and preferably sharply reducing) the world’s human population, without which all the babble over the others is vanity and a chasing after wind. Guess saving humanity is less important than bolstering the circulation figures of Foreign Policy.
Still trying to figure out how 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 etc. qualifies Garry Kasparov to speak about dictatorial governance.
As for “influential people” lists, see “circulation figures”, supra. Take another bow, Pogo.
Foreign Policy. I’m just not there. I love it that you are the only female I know personally who has some sort of fascination with it. I know quite a few females into international finance but not international affairs. I’ll check them out during my week full of “reading days” — see my comment below.
John is having an orgasm because Beckham is the first picture on that time list. You should go read his post.
Stephen Colbert
Dane Cook??
God help us.
No, I think it is pretty cool really.
john: An evil dirty girl response just flicked through my head. I will abstain for posting it. Go check it out.
oc: Here is the way I look at it.
Make the world ( the whole wide world ) a place where women have equal power equal access, equal respect and there ya go.…. population control.
Most women in third world countries who are being given loans in order to start their own businesses 1. succeed 2. pay back their loans.
The third thing they do in almost all cases is ditch the man.… birth control
dane: yea like your fascination with robots and — other things we won’t discuss.
I read it, doesn’t take much to give that boy an orgasm.
eh.
There are some excellent candidates, but how did all that trash get in?
“Ditch the man”, huh? Shot down, and I hardly got the chance to say “hello”.
But you’re absolutely right, at least as far as I understand the case. Trouble is, that understanding encompasses the idea that women’s equality in any society is strongly correlated with the wealth of that society, cf. 19th century America, where wealth led to increasing female emancipation and a decline in the birth (and infant mortality) rate. And we all know where the wealth of the world is going these days …
two out of twenty-one, that is so foreign policy and par for the course.
I am not a foreign policy person but I checked out a couple of them and would love the full text of “A Smarter Superpower”.
“Time” should never let the people vote.
you forgot Sanjaya. Have never watched American Idol, but even I.…
One of my best friend’s has worked for the UN for oh god, 30 years.. She’s stuck in a country she would rather not be in – and she’s a remarkable woman – leading the UN’s gender equality rights there
It’s frustrating because not only does have to develop model problems that really don’t help every woman, she’s a bit stuck being a “role model” but not where she wants to be
Rachel Ray churns my butter.
Fortunately, that cow has been put to pasture.
your body is a wonderland ooo oo, your body needs some vodka ooo oo. …
I’m going to have to read at the rest. I looked at what I could of the posts you linked to. As for the “Time” thing. I just have to wonder.
Ditching the man seems almost mandatory these days among women who gain financial independance. This just enforces that a women andman should both get together after they are already established in their own respective careers and are not dependant on each other.
Sorry I veered a little from the main topic.
I recommend the criminalization of piety, including on matters of social justice. Maybe thirty days in a correctional facility for all people of conscience regardless of whether their devotion is to a religious confession or a cause. I call Cooper gets the upper bunk in the cushiest cell. It’s just 30 days. I ain’t mad at ya.
O C-from what I’ve read the world population will level out in the year 2050. The problem then becomes how does the world workforce keep up if it doesn’t continue to grow. Unfortunately for the younger generations, retirement will come sometime in their 70s.
The one thing missing in the FP article was China (I was glad to see Russia). Sometime between 2030 and 2040 China will surpass the US as the world superpower, then the world will have to deal with Chinese Exceptionalism instead of American Exceptionalism (neoconservativism).
The interesting thing here is what liberals are suggesting is to empower the UN as much as possible now before China becomes the global hegemon.
The problem is that China is even less interested in world opinion than the US (did I mention Sudan?). The UN will never be able to contain China. The Chinese economy will be too important to almost every corner of the planet to the point no country or bloc of countries will be able to make a move without it. It has well over $1Trillion in reserves. If it wants to it can flood any market with any currency it wants to destroy any economy it wants. Although the US pretends to be the global hegemon at the moment, it does so only as permitted by China. A couple months ago, China was the one country that organized a summit of Oil Consuming countries to see what can be done. This was significant because it shows that China is slowly but surely taking over the US as the world leader and providing world leadership. Also, look at the six-party talks. Although the North Koreans wanted to deal directly with the US, China was the party that was in charge of the talks and is now executing the details of the talks.
By 2050 the world will sing to Beijing’s tune and the US, UN & EU won’t be able to do a thing about it.
C-sorry for the long post, but I got my juices flowing. I may have to be back to swipe it for my own blog.
OC: No shoot down.
Yes we do know where it’s going and it is not here at least not to the majority.
kait: Of course they shouldn’t as recent history show “the people” to be a little simple.
pia: The problem is the UN needs to establish this body with women who have a larger base of knowledge outside the realm if the United Nation itself. Women from the particular countries who have worked in those countries independent of any type of governmental or internationally sanctioned body. It won’t work if left to the UN that the UN has become.
saurkraut: I am reassigning you the name sk because I am lazy.
Oh so she’s a butter churner, I wasn’t sure.
Yes my body is a wonderland but you weren’t supposed to tell anyone. I get enough fan mail as it is.
jacob: I think your safe, your wife and you married after you established your own identities.
Yes I like to keep things rigid and on task around here.
Doug: I don’t have time for incarceration Doug I am very busy. I’ll pious-less for a couple hours.
Danny: As the lifespan increases so does the work life span.
Technology as it is and will be will demand
a lesser labor force.
If there must be a super power there will be one. If it be China than it is because we allowed it while we were coveting foreign oil and starting baseless wars. I am much less familiar with China or policy in regard to China than I am with even Iran or Russia for that matter. I can barely wrap my head around anything this week as it is.
No doubt China is an economic behemoth getting ready to sit on our face.
What’s wrong with John Mayer?
It’s out of my hands. I just want to live my life, do a what I can — which won’t be much.
I could see managing a campaign, I’d be good at that.
I barely understand the sloth our social policy here has turned into. I read today that the mentally ill in this country are dying in record numbers due to the policy changes in involving the care there-of, changes started in the Reagan era.
We are killing them and will end up killing ourselves. We are no longer the people who will save the world.
Staying up till five in the morning, living in the library, really puts me in a bad mood.
Sorry it was not quite on topic/task here.
Rachel Ray will never be influential. She doesn’t even call herself a chef. She calls herself a “cooker”. I don’t know about you, but I don’t ever want a cooker to be influential.
The economic lean of all of these makes me glad one of my degrees will be in econ.
My view on the Time thing.
I just looked at it and I can only say in astonishment, Rain??????
We know not what we do.
On second thought.
He is pretty awesome.
When everyone has adequate food and shelter, and clean water, the other problems are all easier to redress. Minimal living standards reduce violence, inequity, disease, etc.
It’s always been the best answer. Problem is that it’s the hardest one to get to.
As for Garry Kasparov, I didn’t see anyone answer the question… Kasparov is now an oppositional party leader in Russia leading rallies against the recentralization of power in the Russian government. He’s basically forsaken his chess background in order to take an active role in making sure democratic reforms aren’t rolled back. He’s, obviously, personally very popular and has a lot of pull on that particular issue.
Come on, Cooper. You’re young. Nothing but time.
Um…Sanjaya? And as far as Rachel Ray is concerned, she’s just teaching the 20 somethings how to cook b/c their mothers were busy bringing home the bacon, and spinning plates to teach their kids how. Now, the marketers are in line to publicize Ray, because of who watches her. Or something like that. But Sanjaya? Hell, I don’t know half the people on the list. Time needs to qualify “influential.” Influential in what capacity? Exhibit lemminghoodness?
Saw that list in FP earlier.
The problem with these sorts of “Save the World” lists is, well, they’re often based too much in academic thought, with very few actual, practical solutions — in many ways, just high-brow versions of the same back-patting, circle-the-wagons, “let’s make a list to sell issues” stuff found in things like TIME’s list.
Good food for thought, though. Really good essay on the problem with biofuels and its cost to the world’s poor in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, too.
G: Nothing wrong with him but come on.
Be well G. The mentally ill thing is not surprising. We are going backward.
mojo:Certainly , which is why it’s such a joke.
casey: Sure we know, it’s easier that way.
dan: until we can eradicate it we are nothing. But even in this country the poor now are likely to stay poor and the rich will stay rich. The American Dreams dead. Which begs the question of not here where?
Doug: So I hear.
Kellypea: Influential only so that time can have something to write that idiots will read. That is my take on it.
Jason: to be fair the article was about ideas not action. But there-in lies the problem so little action. I have great respect for several people on that list. There are some very viable programs which have used ideas from a few of those individuals, programs which are are alleviating poverty. Way too few to be sure but still. Without the ideas there is no action at all.
[…] I’m grateful to Cooper at Wonderland or Not for bringing this article to my […]
I’m going to catch up on it. I happen to like that journal and think it’s a pretty sound read usually.
There is much about academic speak which is useful for those that are taking action. You do have a point there.
I’m an environmental geologist and travel a good part of my waking days.
Potable water– a large issue which should have and could have been solved by now.